Sicko
Rating = C
This is another Michael Moore movie about
a piece of American capitalism which makes money for the big guys while screwing the
little guys, in this case the big guys in our health insurance companies who try to preventing people who
have health problems from getting insurance, denying care to people with insurance, and find ways to get
the money
back when they have actually paid for someone's health care. He is surely cherry picking
his examples, but just as surely there are lots of instances of such examples of their venality.
However, the movie goes off track when Moore is showing that the national health services of other conutries
(Canada, UK, France) are actually very good rather than terrible as the opponents of universal
health care in this country always claim. Moore takes a step too far in going beginning to talk
about the benefits of socialized services more generally in those countries; however, that is
misplaced in this movie as (a) it deflects from the terrible US health care story, and (b) it gives
critics of Moore greater ability to call him a socialist or communist and thus dismiss valid points
he is making about US health care.
In the final section, of the movie, he goes even further off track in leading a band of sick people
who can't get treatment in the US to Cuba where they are given good treatment.
The problem is that he doesn't address the issue of this being a nice PR stunt for Cuba just as
it is for Moore. In generally, Moore's film is more useful when he is making his valid points, perhaps
with a little humor, rather than when his efforts are more stunt like.
I think it this film could have been two movies better than this one: one almost completely about
US health care and the lies that are told about other countries national health systems; and the other
about the benefits of a society that works more collectively than ours does and that is
run less for the benefit of the well-to-do.
[2014-02-26, DVD]